Card tennis team drops first conference match

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The Cardinal boys’ tennis team dropped its first Central Lakes Conference match of the season on Monday in a tight 4-3 match against St. Cloud Tech.

The two teams split the singles matches, but the Tigers took the first and third doubles matches to secure the team win.

“We hate to make excuses but after the high we were on after Saturday’s matches and the big win over Elk River, we were set up for a let down,” head coach Dave Ronning said. “No matter how hard our guys tried to break out of the slow starts we had at several positions, it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Reggie Ronning and Connor Illies both held steady at the top of the singles lineup with straight-set wins. Kevin Desautels and Matt Peterson teamed up at No. 2 doubles to earn a 6-1, 6-3 victory for the Cardinals. That was not enough, though, as the Tigers won in straight sets at Nos. 1 and 3 doubles and No. 3 singles.

Tech’s Luke Zwiener also overcame a 6-3 loss in the first set against Ben LeVahn. Zwiener responded by taking the next two 6-2, 6-3.

“We’ve had our share of coming out on the top end of a lot of these kind of matches,” Ronning said. “So we can’t complain. We need to learn from this experience and move on.”

MATCH RESULTS

St. Cloud Tech 4, Alexandria 3

SINGLES – No. 1 – Reggie Ronning (A) def. Jordan Feddema, 6-3, 6-0; No. 2 – Connor Illies (A) def. Myles Bates, 6-2, 6-1; No. 3 – Riley Bates (SC) def. Luke Eberly, 6-0, 7-5; No. 4 – Luke Zwiener (SC) def. Ben LeVahn, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3

DOUBLES – No. 1 – Nate Wolters/Tyler Bates (SC) def. Jacob Otterness/Marvin Wensman, 6-0, 6-4; No. 2 – Kevin Desautels/Matt Peterson (A) def. Taylor Lovaas/DanLang, 6-1, 6-3; No. 3 – Alex Matchinsky/Billy Zins (SC) def. Cody Nelson/Jeremy Rapp, 6-2, 6-3

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